Spicy Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Things that seem intimidating: homemade pulled pork. Things that are insanely easy: homemade pulled pork.

There are so many ways to go about making pulled pork at home, but I opted to do a spice rub + pork butt + slow cooker and it was AMAZING.

For the rub, I used this recipe, which called for pepper (I used ground peppercorns), paprika, cumin, oregano, cayenne, dark brown sugar and white sugar.

I maneuvered the pork butt into a big freezer bag with the spices, and then I shook the bag like crazy.

And it ended up looking basically like this. I put it in the fridge overnight and set my alarm for 7:30 a.m.

At that time, I rolled the pork butt into my slow cooker, added 1/4 cup of water, set the cooker to low for 8 hours and literally went back to bed. I turned the butt about twice over the next 8 hours, and ladled the juices over the butt.

So, being a bad blogger (but good hostess) I forgot to take a picture of the final result! But this is what it looked like right before I started going at it with two forks. It was literally falling apart, and the bone was completely clean of meat. I tried to remove any extra fat I saw, and shredded it a lot.

The resulting pork was spicy with a kick, and definitely didn't need any barbecue sauce. Not the way purists like it, but great for what I was trying to accomplish. I didn't have any leftovers, but if I had, they would have been perfect for tacos, since many of the spices are the same.